orders of slaughterers of victims and incense-burners; and, by requiring
obedience, will learn to estimate the necessity of it. The rebel, to
whom a throne devolves, becomes a tyrant!"

"Pentuar's poet soul," so he continued to reflect "has quickly yielded
itself a prisoner to the charm of Bent-Anat; and what woman could resist
this highly favored being, who is radiant in beauty as Ra-Harmachis, and
from whose lips flows speech as sweet as Techuti's. They ought never to
meet again, for no tie must bind him to the house of Rameses."

Again he paced to and fro, and murmured:

"How is this? Two of my disciples have towered above their fellows, in
genius and gifts, like palm trees above their undergrowth. I brought
them up to succeed me, to inherit my labors and my hopes.

"Mesu fell away;

[Mesu is the Egyptian name of Moses, whom we may consider as a
contemporary of Rameses, under whose successor the exodus of the
Jews from Egypt took place.]

and Pentaur may follow him. Must my aim be an unworthy one because it
does not attract the noblest? Not so. Each feels himself made of better
stuff than his companions in destiny, constitutes his own law, and fears
to see the great expended in trifles; but I think otherwise; like a brook
of ferruginous water from Lebanon, I mix with the great stream, and tinge
it with my color."

Thinking thus Ameni stood still.